7 Ways to Harness Fear

Fear can often disable us today without good reason. We need to harness it. Here are seven ways.

Create a Top 10 List

As part of a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) program, Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D., author of The Now Effect, suggests persons create a Top Ten Hit List of their most automatic negative thoughts (ANTs). For example: “I am a failure. I’m no good. I’ve let people down. I’m worthless.” By recording them on paper, individuals can begin to see the distortions in their thinking. Then, depending on how ambitious they are, they can apply some of David Burns’ ways of untwisting distorted thinking, such as “Examine the Evidence” (find two reasons why they aren’t worthless), “Thinking in Shades of Gray” (go over black-and-white thinking with shades of gray) or “Define Terms” (define general terms, such as “worthless” – what, exactly, does that mean?)